David J Dittmar, Franziska Pielmeier, Nicholas Strieder, Alexander Fischer, Michael Herbst, Hanna Stanewsky, Niklas Wenzl, Eveline Röseler, Rüdiger Eder, Claudia Gebhard, Lucia Schwarzfischer-Pfeilschifter, Christin Albrecht, Wolfgang Herr, Matthias Edinger, Petra Hoffmann, Michael Rehli
The adoptive transfer of regulatory T cells is a promising strategy to prevent graft-versus-host disease after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation. Here, we use a major histocompatibility complex-mismatched mouse model to follow the fate of in vitro expanded donor regulatory T cells upon migration to target organs. Employing comprehensive gene expression and repertoire profiling, we show that they retain their suppressive function and plasticity after transfer. Upon entering non-lymphoid tissues, donor regulatory T cells acquire organ-specific gene expression profiles resembling tissue-resident cells and activate hallmark suppressive and cytotoxic pathways, most evidently in the colon, when co-transplanted with graft-versus-host disease-inducing conventional T cells...
April 15, 2024: Nature Communications